


Like writing on the surface of a lake

by Mary_the_gardener



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Cozy feelings, Fluff, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-11-27 22:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20955986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_the_gardener/pseuds/Mary_the_gardener
Summary: Javi remembers.. all the happy moments with Yuzu, sweet memories he'll cherish forever.





	Like writing on the surface of a lake

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing.  
I may add other parts in the future.
> 
> Title inspired by Be still my beathing heart by Sting 
> 
> Enjoy

There’s no regret. No remorse for how things have gone. No looking back and wishing to have acted differently. He’s grateful for all they’ve had, as little and unsatisfying as it may seem from an outer eye. He cherishes the memories his time with Yuzu left him: they’re precious belongings that no one is going to take from him, no one will ever be able to. They’re part of him and he can go back there whenever he wants, there’s nothing bad in doing it: it’s not like he’s cheating on her or being somehow unfaithful, they’re just memories, part of the past, there’s no wishing it to be the present reality, no longing to be with him right here and now. It’s just a relaxing place in his mind, somewhere to find comfort and knowledge that all those years have been filled with (rewarding) sacrifices but also lots of beautiful emotions and feelings that he will hold dear forever.  
  
He can still remember.  


Funnily remember how uninterested he was in the beginning, how he barely acknowledged him at the competitions where they met in the two years Yuzu competed as a senior before moving to Canada.

  
Moving to Canada  
  
It’s not like he was _happy_ to have such a competitor as team mate, dark memories of Morozov’s behaviours still lingering, but the mere fact that Brian was asking him showed how different he was; besides, rationally speaking, it’s not like he really had any right to deny Yuzuru of the opportunity of training with such an elite team, and if Brian was willing to take him, Javi could only agree.  
  
And so to Toronto he moved, and Javi tried to be rational, not to hate him, and all he could do to prevent himself from falling back into old fears was put up a façade of Spanish friendliness: being apparently nice, warm smiles and casual, friendly touches was not hard to do, was not so different from his usual behaviour back in Spain; but the truth was he didn't care, in the intimacy of his own thoughts he was trying to just mind his own business. And, honestly, having Brian upset all the time because the kid didn't listen to him and skated around doing whatever he liked was quite annoying, it disrupted the atmosphere of his own training, and that was why he made efforts to help him with the language. But that was it, Javi couldn't help but smile a little thinking that, back then, Yuzu had been to him nothing more than a competitor he was trying to ignore. Just a kid with skinny limbs and an awful haircut, not really anything capable of catching his interest there.

And the point was not in him being the same sex as himself: to the day no one knows about it, but at the time Javi was already well acquainted with his let's-say-versatile sexuality; the intimate activities unfolded in the well protecting four walls of his room in Hackensack quite revealing on that aspect. Thinking about it, perhaps it was also on behalf of that experience that he'd been so uninterested: he had gotten used to quite a different type of man. Being with Cortney didn't have anything to do with it either: he still had eyes anyway; the thing is that he didn't even think about Yuzu like that at all. Not even for a second the idea crossed his mind in the first couple of months. It just happened. Like it just happened that he suddenly started to see him like that too.  
  
  
One day he just realized that he didn't have an opinion on this aspect of Yuzu and, well, things couldn't just stay like that, so he decided he should look at him with more attention, you know, just for the record. Just to have things in order.

Yeah, sure... if only he'd known what this decision would have brought...

One day he was faking smiles and dropping jokes and caresses without a care in the word, touching Yuzu just to show him that they were fine, they could be friends even though they participated in the same competitions.

And the next he was noticing dimples and skinny waist and plush lips and incredibly fair skin. And it was doing things to him: in that early time, he had tried to suppress with all his will those unwanted thoughts and sensations; he had fought with all his strength, but he kept unexpectedly finding his gaze trailing to that incredibly slim body, and his hands glued to surprisingly strong thighs, getting distracted by almond shaped pools of stars and wrecking his brain more than usual to find funny jokes just to see his blinding smile.

He had denied it to himself for weeks, trying to ignore it all and shut down all unwanted thoughts when he was outside of the rink. Thank god, they saw each other only at the club, because otherwise he would probably have crumbled under the weight of his own crush.  
  
And even when he had stopped denying it and finally accepted that, yes, there was definitely something between them, that he was undeniably and hopelessly attracted by Yuzu, he still had restrained himself. Because in the transition he had realized that he kept denying it not just because he somehow wanted to keep perceiving Yuzu as just a skinny weird kid, or out of respect for Cortney, or because he may have not accepted his bisexuality to to the core, but also because he somehow knew that he couldn't really go there: they were first of all competitors, Yuzu was Japanese and probably couldn't even think of coming out, and more importantly they needed to keep all their focus on training, on reaching their biggest dreams.

But despite that he could not either ignore the reactions that Yuzu’s presence caused him, the never subsiding want that just silently boiled deep down in him. He had to accept it and get the little relief that he could without stepping over silently drawn boundaries.

He just couldn't help himself: on any random training day it could happen that he rushed to the other side of the rink, just so he could help him up after a nasty fall. No matter what he had been doing, a friend was a friend (and how tankful he was to his past self for having been so friendly in the beginning!) and, when a friend needed help, his spaniard self would be right there. So he would glide all the way on the ice and stop near him with an extended arm, then when Yuzu got up he would let his hands linger on his frame with the official motive of making sure he hadn't broken anything and the closeness, oh, the closeness made his heart rate speed up incredibly more than the preparation for a jump.

He found himself cooling down in the slowest way possible just so they could head to the lockers together, exchanging shy looks and steal little peeks of naked skin.

They had never openly talked about it. There was no need, he somehow always knew that they were in this together, well-tuned.  
There were no words exchanged about it between them, but the looks where enough.

Infinite conversation happened across the crisp air of the rink, their black pupils burning into each other, saying everything that was needed. A silent conversation, a flowing of souls that were mutely grasping at each other, making love in an ethereal way, and that somehow was so much more than some banal sex.

(Of course, Javi can't deny that he got off uncountable times with the image of Yuzu burned on the back of his eyelids, but that is a fact, something that was good on the moment, something he is grateful to Yuzu for. That is not what he will remember with a warm sensation spreading in his chest.)  
  
What he will remember - what he remembers - is the hair on his forearms standing up with electricity, Yuzu's own skin mere millimetres away from his, so close that he could feel his warmth and his mind wasn't able to concentrate on anything but that while they sat on metal chairs waiting for their flight to start boarding. All the hustle and bustle of people running up and down the aisle of the airport going totally unnoticed; thinking about it now, Javi is thankful for the presence of Brian on his other side, because he was so lost in it that they could have robbed him bare and he wouldn't have noticed at all, and he doesn't think Yuzu was in better conditions. They just stood there, frozen, not daring to come closer but not wanting to interrupt a contact that was not even there, eyes avoiding each other, staring ahead, feigning nonchalance outside while inside is a thunder of fireworks. At least this is what Javi remembers, he can't vouchsafe for Yuzu, but he doesn't think he felt much different. He just knew, back then, and he trust that feeling now. He wants to trust it. To keep this golden sensation within himself, pure.  
  


He can remember, still burned in his mind, all the stolen glances at expanses of bare skin into the lockers room. Yuzuru from the start never was bothered by such a shared intimacy, probably due to some japanese tradition, and Javi being busy on his "everything is all right" mission had let a comfortable and laid back atmosphere sink on those shared moments. That's how they ended up seeing way too much of each other's skin when neither of them was indifferent anymore, when each gaze burned heavily but they both pretended not to feel it. Yuzuru had blossomed in front of Javi's eyes, going from lanky, awkward teenager to perfectly sculptured but gracious man, a breath-taking sight. And he knew Yuzu looked too, sometimes, masking it in a casual manner, but it was just a facade for appearances, for the others and for themselves too, though neither of them had any problem in seeing right through it. Javi always understood, and his heart pumped fast and his blood run hot in his veins, even hotter and faster for knowing that it all was just this ephemeral, destined to be forever suspended into the air.

He will remember all the shared lunches in the cafeteria, sitting at a round table with Nam and Elene or later on Elizabet, or even Sonia for the short time she stayed with them. But it didn't really matter who was there. If Yuzu was sitting at the other side of the table Javi would stretch all over it to reach and steal a piece of his meal from his bento box, and Yuzu would tease him for his bought sandwich - but in the end he always shared his mom's delicacies with him - and they would just bicker all the way trough the break, constantly teasingly scorning each other: it was their way, their way to cope with all the rest, what laid underneath, a distraction for themselves. But it was still a thing only theirs, the laughs and jokes with the others not quite as special, never able to penetrate into their bubble, and Javi wouldn't have given up that coping mechanism for all the golds in the world.


End file.
